In memory of our brother and son, Robert Bagnell,
who died moments after being tasered by police in Vancouver, British Columbia on June 23, 2004. Bob was the 7th Canadian to die and the 110th in North America.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

To argue that tasers save lives by preventing gun use by police is to accept a false premise, yet that is the argument that the House of Commons public safety committee is reportedly preparing to make to Canadians. Tasers are not used as an alternative to guns, as the committee well knows.

Yet the committee, faced with an opportunity to supply national leadership, appears to lack the spine to try to curb out-of-control taser use. It will instead call for a mere tweak to RCMP usage guidelines - a tweak rejected once by the RCMP commissioner.

The use of tasers as a replacement for guns is the very foundation of public support. Even some politicians responsible for approving them thought that was how they would be used. They were wrong.

All this became clear at the committee's Feb. 25 hearing. "I was the attorney-general in B.C. when this device was first introduced in Victoria through a pilot project," said Ujjal Dosanjh, a member of the committee. "I was given the impression that it would be used sparingly, that it would be a second-last resort, which means if under normal circumstances you would draw a gun to deal with some serious issues, this would take the place of some of those instances of drawing guns."

RCMP Sergeant Richard Groulx told him he'd misunderstood. "The conducted energy weapon for the RCMP has never been a replacement to lethal force." This is stunning. Legislators put a weapon in the hands of police without understanding its use.

This weapon can hardly be said to be used sparingly. The RCMP now use it 1,400 times a year, or more than 100 times a month. They used it on Frank Lasser, an 82-year-old man in a hospital bed clutching a penknife. They used it, with fatal consequences, on Robert Dziekanski, a distressed but not dangerous Polish immigrant at Vancouver's airport. It has become a weapon of convenience.

Sgt. Groulx went on to explain why it is not a replacement for guns. "There's nothing sure about the deployment of a conducted energy weapon, especially when a situation is dynamic. When it's dynamic, quite often the deployment will fail which puts the officer at risk. . . . assume a probe missed its point of impact, or is embedded in loose clothing. . . . There is no effect so the client can close that distance in a very short period of time with a knife or a baseball bat. . . ."

The taser can be a useful tool. A mentally ill person who is threatening suicide - say, by holding a knife to his throat, or standing threatening to jump in front of a train - can be quickly controlled. In that sense, the taser can save lives.

Police also say it saves lives by stopping dangerous situations from escalating. This may be true in some cases, but it also gives licence to police to use their tasers in low-level situations.

The committee is reportedly ready to urge that the RCMP use its stun gun on "combative" people rather than "resistant" ones, as currently permitted. "Combative" is little improvement. The RCMP could have described the 82-year-old Mr. Lasser in his hospital bed or the exhausted, befuddled Mr. Dziekanski as combative.

Taser use is becoming more frequent and widespread, and police forces have been unwilling to take a fresh look at the risks involved in the use of this weapon. The public is beginning to take that new look; yesterday, Taser International Inc. lost a product-liability suit in California in the heart-attack death of a young man tasered several times by police. (The police were cleared, because they hadn't been told of the risks.)

Legislators, now that they understand how tasers are actually used, need to reassert control over this weapon by setting the threshold for use at a much higher level: to prevent grievous physical harm, or death.

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taser-Related Deaths = 997+ in North America

See "A LIST OF THE DEAD"According to Taser International, the taser had nothing to do with any of these deaths. According to Amnesty International, the taser has been identified as either a cause or contributing factor in at least 60 of them. That number would be higher; however medical examiners and coroners are often not impartial but are instead biased in favour of the Crown or, as has been shown, they are under tremendous pressure from - among others - Taser International, to make a particular finding.See Judge rules for Taser in cause-of-death decisions

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Taser International finally admits risk that their weapons may affect the human heart

RCMP - TASERS POTENTIALLY LETHAL

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My Brother - Robert Bagnell June 27, 1959 - June 23, 2004

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2) Until such time as independent and unbiased study into the "real world" safety implications of Tasers has been properly completed, a moratorium must be imposed upon these weapons.

3) If, after independent and unbiased study has been completed, the Taser is going to remain in the police arsenal, it must be placed at a level equal to lethal force on the continuum of force and used only as a second-to-last resort.

4) Safety standards must be developed for Tasers. There are currently no Canadian safety standards in place for this weapon.

5) Police must not be allowed to investigate themselves but must be subject to independent and unbiased civilian oversight.

6) Families of people who die in police custody in Canada must be provided with funding so that they may be properly represented by legal counsel.

07. Robert Bagnell, 44 – Vancouver, BC - June 23, 2004 - X26 - "Official" cause of death: Consistent with restraint-associated cardiac arrest due to acute cocaine intoxication and psychosis. Bob's autopsy report showed marks on his body consistent to multiple taser shots, which incidently could not be affirmed by the pathologist because she could not explain those marks.

09. Samuel Truscott, 43 – Kingston, ON - August 8, 2004 - X26 - "Official" cause of death: Heart attack cause by drug overdose and "I can state categorically that the Taser did not play any role whatsoever in his death" said Chief Coroner for Ontario, Jim Cairns

24. Michael Langan, 17, Winnipeg, MB - July 22, 2008 - tasered 1 time - the autopsy report says Langan's death was caused by a heart arrhythmia brought on by the Taser shocks

25. Sean Reilly, 42 - Brampton, ON - September 17, 2008 - Peel Regional Police - X26 - tasered 2 times - the inquest jury will determine the official cause of death, however, “the forensic evidence indicated that the force used by the officers, including the Taser discharge, did not contribute to his death"

27. Trevor Grimolfson, 38 - Edmonton, AB - October 29, 2008, X26 - According to sources, after he was pepper sprayed, Trevor was tasered directly on the chest 5 times and tasered on the back of the neck 2 more times - Edmonton police said he was only tasered 2 times but testing on the tasers proves otherwise - "Official" cause of death: excited delirium brought on by drugs

29. Grant William Prentice, 40 - Brooks, AB - May 6, 2009 - RCMP - tasered 2 times - "Official" cause of death: acute cocaine toxicity and "the medical examiner also concluded the taser did not play a role in the death"

Ain't it the truth!

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80% percent of the population could be moved in either direction

Human rights activist Susan Sontag, when asked what she had learned from the Holocaust, said that 10 percent of any population is cruel, no matter what, and that 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and that the remaining 80 percent could be moved in either direction.

THE Successes AREN'T the Problem

"The issue is not whether or not the taser can be used in a high percentage of cases to reduce death and/or physical trauma to officers and civilians alike. The issue is whether or not it's OK to kill the rest through ignorance and rationalization just because it's a small percentage ... The successes aren't the problem - the failures are. They're being told that tasers are nonlethal, so they blast away until people can't move. They're killing people by accident." Dave Siegler, father of Raymond Siegler, who died on February 12, 2004

The artistic side of Robert Bagnell

WE KNOW THIS MUCH IS TRUE

ROBERT ANGLEN

Robert Anglen, a reporter with The Arizona Republic, documented the first 167 Taser-related deaths. Mr. Anglen launched a journalistic investigation of Taser International, linking the Taser to multiple deaths, among other eye-openers.

At the 2005 Arizona Press Club Awards, Mr. Anglen won first place in the Investigative reporting category. He was the recipient of the Don Bolles Award for his report entitled "Taser tied to 'independent' study that backs stun gun'. “As part of an extraordinarily thorough investigation of Taser International, Anglen uncovered ‘smoking gun’ documents that showed the manufacturer was heavily involved in the key study that purported the devices are safe. Anglen also uncovered conflicts of interest and documented wide-spread problems with Taser safety — a matter of national and international public interest.”

In 2006, Mr. Anglen was a runner up for the Arizona Press Club's Virg Hill Journalist of the Year award. Peter Bhatia of The Oregonian wrote “Robert Anglen is an investigative reporter, pure and simple. Clearly, he is a reporter who, once he sinks his teeth into something, stays with it until the story is done. His ongoing work around the company that makes Tasers speaks to that."